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After feeling sick all morning, Kashif Alvarez was woken up and startled by a phone call from Veterans advocate Robert Valdez. The harsh wakeup sent Alvarez into a small seizure. Later, Valdez came to take Alvarez to a routine doctors appointment to try to get him an extension for seizure prevention medication but upon arrival at the doctors Alvarez began to feel very sick and thought he was going to pass out. Nurses helped him and then called for a transport to Memorial Hospital where he was given a saline IV and they took chest x-rays. Doctors at the hospital attributed the episode, which included chest pain, headache in the temples, dizziness, numbness and tingling in the arms and fluctuations in heartbeat and blood pressure to the TBI from his time in the Marines. Wednesday, December 19, 2012. Michael Ciaglo/The Gazette